Indonesia's Kudo gets Gree Ventures, East Ventures backing
Japan's Gree Ventures and East Ventures have led a undisclosed Series A round investment in Indonesian online-to-offline (O2O) e-commerce start-up Kudo.
US seed-stage investor 500 startups and Singapore's IMJ Investment Partners also took part in the round. The investment comes just five months after East Ventures made its first seed-stage investment in the company.
Kudo targets potential customers by setting up physical e-commerce kiosks in high-profile locations in Jakarta where sales agents use mobile tablets to sell online products to people who might otherwise not visit an online store. Customers are able to pay for their purchases through a variety of methods. The company will use the extra investment to expand regionally to reach 1,000 agents in the next 3-6 months.
"Albert Lucius [CEO and co-founder] and Agung Nugroho [COO and co-founder] have been showing determination to address the 81.4% unbanked population in Indonesia," said Willson Cuaca, co-founder and managing partner of East Ventures. "Only 19.6% of Indonesian people have access to bank and financial product according to World Bank Global Financial Index, which is the lowest in Southeast Asia after Vietnam at 21.4%. The opportunity is humongous."
This is the third Indonesian investment for Southeast Asia-focused East Ventures in a matter of weeks. It previously backed furniture ecommerce site Livaza and online coffee store chain Otten Coffee.
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